Andrew Dickson Murray FRSE FRPSE FLS (19 February 1812, Edinburgh – 10 January 1878, Kensington) was a Scottish lawyer, botanist, zoologist and entomologist.

He was born at 17 Forth Street[1] in Edinburgh, on 19 February 1812, and was son of William Murray WS of Conland (now part of Glenrothes) and Duncrivie (near Kinross), and his wife Mary Thompson (d.1871).

[3] On the foundation of the Oregon Exploration Society, he became its secretary, and this apparently first aroused his interest in Western North America and in the Coniferae.

In 1868, he began the collection of economic entomology for the Science and Art Department, now at the Bethnal Green Museum.

His chief contributions to entomology deal with Coleoptera, the unfinished monograph of the Nitidulariae, in the Linnean Transactions (vol.

He cited the example of eyeless insects of the same genera existing in isolated caves in distant parts of the world as evidence against natural selection.

[6] Darwin described his objection as an "ingenious difficulty" but suggested he had little doubt that such insects were examples of living fossils.

[4][6] However, in his book The Geographical Distribution of Mammals (1866), he stated his issue was with natural selection, not the origin of species and that he "thoroughly accepted the theory that species are not produced by independent creation, but that, under the operation of a general law, the germs of organisms produce new forms different from themselves, when particular circumstances call the law into action.